Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-04-26
A BEER MOVEMENT.

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The Alta reports San Francisco brewers
as favoring higher wholesale price for
beer, not only because of the narrow mar
gin of profit present rates leave them, but
because, as one leading brewer put it, the
cheapness of beer is contributing nightly
to the high license sentiment. This manu-
facturer is reported 10 have said:
Cheap beer fashions a club to break our own
heads. At the present price two pounds of beer
can be retailed fer five cents. This is enough to
make n woman drunk, and it is doing it to an
alarming extent. As Deer is sold at all the cor
ner groceries where laboring men get their sup
plies. beer cuts n large figure in the bills. The
women come together in certain localities while
their husbands are out at work, and pass the
time in idleness, gossip, and beer drinking. The
children are Kept going backward and forward
between the tenementS and the corner grocery
with the beer can. This demoraliZes them as
the drink demoralizes their mothers, when in
dulged in, in such quantities as the present low
retail price permits. The depressing effect on
the labor1ng men whose wives manage to get
into state that foTbds good housekeeping or
decent habits, on five or ten cents day can
very well be imagined. This sort of thing is
producing strong sentiment among the better
class of people i'll favor of license high enough
TO prevent corner groceries from selling beer.
This sentiment is growing among men who are
but who wish to check this pernicious habit OF
family drinking. We wish to meet this senti.
meRt half way and disarm it by arranging a
schedule of prices that will check the growth of
family drinking to excess.
There is business philosophy in this
statement Assuming that the brewers
will act upon it, they will do wisely. No
man has his eyes open who has not OBJ
served that under the low prices for beer,
over-indulgence in it has alarmingiy in
creased, and that the pitcher and bucket
brigade marches to the corner grocery
stronger and oftener every month. Recent
ly we published exhibits from the Govern
ment's Bureau of Statistics, showing that
since 1910 the consumption of spirituous
liquors has rapidly decreased. and that of
malt liquors has correspondingly increased
In 1910, with population of little over
100000, the consumption of distilled
spirits was 43060 SS4 proof gallons; of
domestic wines, 124,z34 gallons; of i'm
ported wines, 4,74S,362 gallons; of domes-
tic malt liquors, 2,3l6,257 gallons; of i'm
ported malt liquors, 1922 gallons. In
1883, with population of 5S,00O,00O, we
consumed of distilled spirits. 10000 677
gallons; of domestic wines, Il ,40469S gal
Ions; of imported wines, 3,476,937 gallons
OF domestic malt liquors, 594, 063, 095 gal
Ions, and OF imported malt liquors, 206S,-
al gallons. So that the proof of the San
Francisco brewers assertion, as reported
10y the Alta, is Strong. 1t is found in the
fact that while the population increased
little less than three and half times in
iorty-hve years, our consumption of dis
titled spirits did not double. In 1910 we
drank of distilled liquors about two and a
half gallons per capita, while in 1885 the
consumption had declined about one and
one-tfth gallons. OF domestic wines we
consumed in 1885 more than fourteen
times as much as in 1870 and imported
wines consumption, in the meantime. de-
clined by over one and a quarter millions
of the consumption in 1870 In the forty
hive years our population augmented about
three and a half times, but we increased
our consumption Of malt liquors TWENTY
hive times. The total consumption forty
live years ago, of malt liquors, was about
one and a third gallons to every man.
woman and ckild in the land while less
than two years ago it was about twelve and
three-fourths gallons for every person
enumerated in the census population.
The New York Tribune figures out a
somewhat less aggregate consumption per
capita for 1885, namely, Ills But this
evidently is because Of higher estimate
of our population in 1885 than we have
assumed. But at the showing of the
Tribune the marvellous increase of beer
drinking is still sufficiently established. 1t
is shown, however, that we are still below
Germany and Great Britain. In the
former the consumption of malt liquor is
23.7S per capita, and in the latter 1878.
Nevertheless the per capita is large
enough.
The brewers in desiring to reduce the
consumption without limiting the income
from it, unquestiouably fear the growth Of
the high license sentiment will extend to
a restriction that will affect their income.
and hence the disposition to meet the
sslovement half way and thus negative It's
advance. For it is the history of all re-
forms of this character that they generally
proceed to their natural possibilities.
Hence the brewers are justified in the fear
that cheap beer mag bring about such reg
uiation as will drive out class of GUS
toners they cannot well afford to lose. The
movement, therefore, is one of much in
tereS. to the community, and will probably
command good deal of attention. 1t rep
resents the financial caution of one class of
liquor manufacturers endeavering to meet
and check a sentiment that threatens linn
itation sof the manufacture